


Who are you waiting for

by lcib



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Established Relationship, F/F, Supercat Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 07:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10714836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lcib/pseuds/lcib
Summary: The bedroom was empty, but she could hear them down the hall in the living room like she was standing next to them.  It made her feel exposed in the empty room, her grime-coated suit sticking uncomfortably to her skin, but she didn’t want to shake off the weight of the cape around her shoulders while they were so close.





	Who are you waiting for

**Author's Note:**

> I'm glad my wife proof-read this and made it better despite my squirming and general angst.

Kara could hear them before she pulled herself through the window. It had been left open, a crack between the frame and the sill inviting her in, even though she still had to pry up the screen because Cat refused to let bugs into her room while she was waiting for Kara. The bedroom was empty, but she could hear them down the hall in the living room like she was standing next to them. It made her feel exposed in the empty room, her grime-coated suit sticking uncomfortably to her skin, but she didn’t want to shake off the weight of the cape around her shoulders while they were so close.

“Are you sure you want to go, buddy?” Carter’s father was saying.

There was a long pause. Kara stared hard at the curved bottle of Cat’s perfume on the dresser to keep herself from peering through the hallway at the conversation.

“Last time we checked, he was going to go,” Cat said.

“Mom,” Carter hissed. “Everyone’s going.”

“Well,” Carter’s dad said. Kara could hear the grin in his voice. “I guess if everyone’s doing it, it must be pretty cool.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Carter said.

“You don’t always have to do what your friends are doing,” Cat said and Kara felt warm at the tone in her voice. 

“I want to,” Carter said quickly. “It’s going to be fun.”

“Okay,” Carter’s dad said, like a coach before a big game. “We’re doing this. Go get your stuff.”

Kara heard Carter’s soft, careful footsteps pad down the hall and turn into his room.

“Does he know what he’s wearing?” Carter’s dad asked quietly. Kara had to focus to hear them.

“He has two options in his bag.”

“What should he wear?”

“Whatever he wants.”

“Cat.” He was smiling again, Kara could practically hear the way his thin lips pulled fondly over his too-white teeth, his voice getting lower with affection. “He’s going to ask and I’m going to make the wrong choice and our kid will be messed up forever.”

“The stripes.” Now Cat was smiling too and Kara ached.

“Thank you.” There was a pause and then he said. “I’m surprised he wanted to go.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“Well, shit Cat.” Kat heard him drag his hand through his hair, curly and speckled with grey, she remembered. “It’s just about everything Carter can’t handle.”

“It’s not that he can’t handle it,” Cat said softly, her voice getting softer. “He just gets overwhelmed. If he wants to go, he gets to go.”

“I know, I know.”

This would be the pause, Kara felt, where she should make an appearance. She could stand next to Cat, say goodbye to Carter before he went off to the perils of a middle school dance. They would be a unit and she would be enough, but she stayed still, stuck in the middle of the room, dressed as someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.

“So how are you?” Carter’s dad said.

“Fine,” Cat said quickly. She was smiling again and Kara wished she could see if it was the small, pleased smile Cat reserved for her or something different that had been long reserved for him. Just as she was starting to squint through the walls she heard Carter finish zipping up his backpack and she ducked into the bathroom, away from their goodbyes.

She was still there when she heard Cat come into the bedroom and sigh heavily. Unable to say anything, Kara knocked a bottle of moisturizer off the counter.

“Kara?”

“Yeah?”

The door swung open and Cat was there. “I didn’t know you were here.” Her face was open and happy. “Carter would have liked to say goodbye.”

“I just got in.” 

Cat stretched up on her toes to kiss Kara hello. “Sorry my soulmate’s such a condescending twerp,” she said, seeing straight through Kara’s lie. “I don’t blame you for hiding back here.”

“I wasn’t hiding,” Kara said. She tried to relax into the feeling of Cat in her arms, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the way Cat’s soulmate made her smile.

“What’s wrong?” Cat dropped back on her heels and stared up at Kara.

“Nothing,” she said quickly, but it was too late. The soft, vulnerable excitement that had been lighting Cat’s face faded away and she tugged gently Kara’s cape.

“What happened?”

“Just more cleanup from the landslide,” Kara said. “Turns out I’m pretty good at replacing power lines.”

“Of course you are,” Cat said. “Carter had been looking forward to seeing you. He seems to have the impression you could commiserate with pre-teen angst.” 

Kara cringed. “Was he nervous? He’s going to be great.”

“I’m not the one who needs to hear it.” Cat stared at her until she had look away, her face burning with guilt. “Well, are you staying or going, Supergirl?”

She reached for Cat’s waist, but lost her nerve and took her hand instead. “I’m here.”

“If you’re sure,” Cat said lightly. “I understand if you have other places to be. Puppies to rescue.”

“No, I want to be here.” It sounded desperately false. “I want dinner. With you, if you want?”

Cat squeezed her hand and then let go. “I suppose I can watch you inhale something greasy and underpriced.”

She didn’t stay to watch Kara peel the suit down her arms and in her absence, Kara changed in a burst of superspeed, unable to look at herself.

* * * 

If any of the straggling commuters making their way home through the misting rain had looked up, they might have noticed Supergirl perched on a roof ledge. They might have felt comforted to see her up there like a stone owl to ward off pigeons, part protector, part symbol. They could have gone back to whoever awaited them at home and report that they saw Supergirl, not doing anything, just sitting, watching, yet still heroic. But it was a chilly evening and no one turned their faces up to the rain and Supergirl on the roof went unnoticed.

Kara had put on the suit out of habit. She had no reason to be out other than she couldn’t stay in. Couldn’t sit through the way Cat’s gaze had flitted around the room, taking in everything but Kara. She hadn’t let Cat see her change, taking the time she knew Cat would be occupied with her first sip of bourbon to blur out of Kara Danvers and into Supergirl, but she paused at the window, unable to simply disappear. Cat had met Kara’s eyes over the rim of her glass and Kara felt, like the warm, harmless burn of liquor down the back of her throat, the way their night could be. All the things they still had to say to each other and she knew with absolute certainty that Cat could taste them too. The shared possibility hovered between them like a fish finally caught in a net then slipped away into darkness again. Cat had nodded, tipping her glass towards Kara like a salute, and even though her eyes were dark and sad, Kara couldn’t help pushing herself away, out the window and into the rain.

A bead of water rolled down Kara’s face and dripped off her chin on to her already-soaked suit. She had no idea how long she’d been sitting on the roof, waiting for her thoughts to clear a way forward. She thought back to day before when Carter’s father had brought him back to the apartment for the week. Cat had met them at the door while Kara hovered in the kitchen, feeling awkward and superfluous until Carter had come to sit with her, bouncing on his stool. Over his chatter about the karaoke machine at his dance and how he had fit eleven tootsie rolls in his mouth at once, Kara had watched Cat and her soulmate talk quietly together, grinning at each other, and felt herself wilt.

“Bye Carter,” his father had said at last.

As soon as the door had closed behind him, Cat met Kara’s gaze over the breakfast bar and rolled her eyes. Kara had glowed. Over Mario Kart with Carter, she’d tried to let that moment of shared judgment blossom into understanding, but it refused to take root. 

Her phone rang in her ear. She looked down at the flashing display on her wrist. It was Cat.

“Hey.”

“Where are you?” 

Kara squinted out over the city. “I’m south of Catco, but I’m still north of the bridge, so I’m not really sure. Ambrose Street, maybe?”

“Are you safe?”

“Oh. Oh god, oh no, I’m sorry. This wasn’t, I don’t know. Anything bad.”

“I see,” Cat said stiffly. Kara didn’t need to see Cat to know the way her lips were pursing together. “Well, if there’s no natural or supernatural emergency, what are you doing, Kara?”

“I just wanted to think?”

“In the middle of the night in the rain?”

Kara winced. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Well, you did.”

“Do you want me to, I mean, should I come back?” She could hear the way Cat’s sharp breath swept up the air over her phone’s microphone like she was trying to pull something back.

“I don’t know, Kara, do you want to? No one’s forcing you, I just thought – ” Cat broke off.

Kara swiped at the rain in her eyes. “Thought what?”

“Thought you had some backbone under that suit,” Cat said. “I’m going to bed. Climb in a window if you feel like it.” She hung up.

The sound of the rain on the roof filtered through the silence left by the phone call. It had been better that morning. Cat had been dry and snappish, but Kara had known it was all for show and been patiently indulgent until Cat had rolled her eyes and kissed her long and hard before shooing her out of the car. Kara had felt like they were in sync, back in the rhythm that had convinced Cat this would be a good idea at all, that they worked beyond an understanding of secrets and coffee orders. She had gone through her day on the lilt of that rhythm, happy to stop by her apartment for clean socks and take the long way to Cat’s, but the cadence had slipped away again by the time she arrived. Cat had watched her like a hawk, with the same resentful intensity she’d had before Supergirl was out in the open, like Kara was hiding the best part of herself away. 

As Cat had promised, the bedroom window was open, rain dripping on to the sill. When Kara hoisted herself through and dropped onto the floor, she saw Cat was asleep in the middle of the bed. She stared down at her for a moment, transfixed by guilt and longing. There was a t-shirt tossed face up on the arm chair in the corner so Kara could easily tell it was one of hers. When she finished pulling it over her head, Cat was propped up on her elbows, staring at her.

“Hi,” Kara said.

“I’m choosing not to ask.” Cat pulled back the blankets.

“I needed to think.” Kara twisted the hem of her shirt in her hands.

“You don’t have to make excuses,” Cat said. Her gaze was flitting again, away from Kara, to the clock on the nightstand whose hands pointed somewhere after midnight, out the still open window, over to the closed door to the hallway.

“I want to.”

Her head swung back around to Kara. “I don’t want to hear it right now,” she said quietly. She patted the empty patch of sheets next to her.

Kara slid into bed and wriggled closer until the length of her torso was pressed against Cat’s side. “I’m here,” she whispered into Cat’s shoulder.

Just when she was sure they would sleep close, but separate all night, Cat reached out, her fingers skimming over Kara’s hip, across her bare thigh, between her legs to cup her possessively over her underwear. Kara’s pelvis twitched forward immediately and she thought she felt Cat smile in the darkness. 

* * *

“I have something for you,” Cat said.

“Really?” Kara said warily. She had been watching Cat’s sharp, overly confident grin growing all morning. It was the look she only brought out when she had something especially cunning planned and Kara hadn’t been on the receiving end of it for a while.

Cat pulled a manila folder carefully out of her purse and slid across the table towards Kara. “Open it.”

There was a stapled set of papers inside. Kara read the first line before her head jerked up and she stared at Cat. “What is this?”

“Your soulmate test,” Cat said brightly. “They’re prohibitively expensive and I know what you used to make an hour, so I correctly assumed you’d never had it done. But now you have.” She smiled the way she did when she’d confirmed something she already knew and folded her hands around her coffee mug.

“What?” Kara said stupidly, her head still jerking between the logo of a heart-shaped double helix at the top of the page and Cat’s serene, self-satisfied stare. 

“Her name is Ekaterini Psarra. At least I think that’s how it’s pronounced, I haven’t really brushed up on my Greek. That’s where she is. Thessaloniki, Greece. Second largest city in the country, incidentally, home of the – Kara? 

She launched out of her chair into the corner of the room next to the fridge. Her heart was beating so loud she almost missed Cat saying her name again. Cat stood up slowly and twisted towards her.

“Kara, what’s wrong?”

Kara was barely conscious of her eyes going golden then red hot as her heat vision incinerated the test rusts. Unfortunately the lasers didn’t stop there and also torched the sports section of the paper, a napkin and the fruit bowl, which exploded. 

Cat flicked a clump of orange pith off her white blouse and stared at Kara, who had both hands clapped over her mouth in horror.

“I understand that I’ve upset you,” she said carefully. “But you need to calm down.”

“I’m so sorry.” Kara came at the stain on Cat’s blouse with a wet sponge, but Cat waved her away. “I’m sorry,” Kara said again. “I was just so – I can’t believe you did that.”

“Oh come on, Kara. You have met me. I have most of the people I take to dinner background checked, never mind someone I’m sleeping with. Someone who’s met Carter.” 

“I’m different.”

Cat rolled her eyes. “I’ve told you a hundred times, Kara, the only thing I hate more than cuffed flare jeans is being blindsided.”

“How long have you known?”

“Seventy two hours after the first time you stayed over.”

She thought back to their initial awkward mornings when she’d get up an hour early to change at her own apartment and Cat would watch her leave from bed, pretending to be nonchalant.

“You took my toothbrush.” The extra one that Cat had handed her on the first night, still in its packaging, that had disappeared shortly after in, what Kara had assumed until this moment, to be a fit of second-guessing.

“It seemed easiest,” Cat said into her mug. She looked up and shrugged, smiling tightly. “Although at that point I didn’t know I’d have ample opportunity to get a blood sample.”

“Is that – “ Kara’s hands started to tremble. Her eyes burned and she slammed them shut, swallowing at the lump in her throat. When she opened them again, Cat was a step closer. “That’s how you knew I was Supergirl,” she said calmly.

For the first time since the folder had come out of Cat’s purse, her eyes softened into middle distance then focused remorsefully on Kara. “It didn’t reveal anything other than your non-human status.” 

“But you wondered at me before. Did you – “ Her eyes stung, dousing her helpless rage.

Cat sighed. “It was not part of my entirely separate, though I admit, not forgotten mission to discover Supergirl’s real identity. The alien status made it hard not to leap to conclusions.”

“You like being right.”

“I do.”

Kara sniffed and blinked desperately until her vision cleared. “Why did you have to do it?”

“Because I thought it was what you wanted,” Cat said. “And I thought if I was going to lose you to who you’re supposed to be with, I wanted to make sure they were, I don’t know, someone’s estimation of good enough.”

“I never wanted to know.” 

“I see that now.”

The sun streamed in through their silence. Kara kept gasping, shuddering gulps like she couldn’t get enough air, but when she looked at Cat, her face was as still as a picture.

“I think you should go,” Cat said calmly. “I have to get this cleaned up before the housekeeper gets here.”

Kara forced herself to leave without using her powers and didn’t let herself cry until her apartment door closed behind her.

* * *

When reporters arrived on the scene to cover the vandalism committed by a pair of unidentified flying creatures tearing all the gargoyles off the buildings in the historic district, none of them mentioned how tired Supergirl looked. One local radio commentator did mention it was the ninth incident she’d handled in a twenty four hour period, but it was said with awe instead of concern. As usual, Supergirl politely refused to give any comments to the press, but did pose for a picture next to a pile of rubble before shooting back into the sky. Catco Media used the image later that night for an opinion piece on whether the gargoyles should be restored at all. Kara’s phone pinged with a text notification of the article’s publication just as she landed unsteadily on Cat’s balcony. 

“You’ve been busy,” Cat said without looking up from her computer.

“You too,” Kara said. “You weren’t at the apartment.”

“As I’m sure you’re aware, a global corporation won’t run itself. On the other hand, do traffic violations really require Supergirl’s attention?”

“Can I come in?”

Cat spun her chair towards the balcony. Her face was pinched and wan and Kara could tell she’d put on more foundation than usual. “The door’s open.”

On her way across the room, Kara grabbed Cat’s mostly empty glass. There was only one press of lipstick on the rim.

“Am I going to need that?” Cat watched Kara pour another two fingers from Cat’s for-emergencies bottle.

Kara shrugged. “I didn’t have a reason for coming. I just wanted to see you.”

“Here I am.”

“Cat, please.”

For a moment, Kara thought her head was going to slump into her hands, but she took a deep breath that propelled her around the desk to take the drink in Kara’s hands. “Come sit with me, Supergirl.” 

It was a clear evening. Kara could see all the way to the docks without squinting. She waited until she heard Cat settle in a chair before hopping up on the concrete railing and swinging her legs over the edge.

“I hate it when you do that,” Cat said.

“I can’t fall.”

“That’s not why I hate it.”

When she looked back over her shoulder, Cat was staring down into her drink. “I never know when you’re going to leave,” she said quietly.

“I’m here,” Kara said desperately. Her throat felt dry, like she’d been saying those words over and over again for days. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Cat scoffed and took a large sip of whiskey. “You have no idea what it’s like to care about someone who can just jump out the window whenever she feels like it.”

“I guess I don’t.” Kara slid back on to the balcony and perched on the chair across from Cat. She tentatively reached out to touch the edge of Cat’s skirt, her fingers just ghosting over Cat’s knee. Cat shivered. 

“If you’ve known about my soulmate for this long, why did you only bring it up now?”

“I told you.”

“You think you’re losing me.”

“Yes.” Cat looked up and her eyes glittered wetly. “I’ve thought that for a while now.”

“But you’re – “ Kara curled her fingers into her palms until they stung. “You’ve got. I mean, aren’t you and Carter’s dad – ?”

“What?” It was the tone of voice that meant Kara was probably in very deep water, but she was couldn’t help herself.

“Still a something?”

“He’s a man-spreading, mansplaining puddle of entitlement,” Cat said indignantly. 

“He’s your soulmate.”

“Kara.”

“But you always seem so.” She gestured pointlessly. “Connected when he’s here.”

“We are, technically. But just because we put on a good show for the son we share does not mean I actually like him,” Cat said. “You’ve known me long enough to tell when I’m just tolerating someone.”

“I got scared.”

“You got scared?” Cat choked. She took a deep breath and patted at Kara’s hand still hovering over her knee. “Michael and I tried and while I will be forever grateful we had Carter, it didn’t work. It hasn’t worked for almost eight years and I don’t want it anymore. I thought I was quite clear what I wanted when we started this.”

“Me.”

“You.” Cat put her glass on the floor. “I understand what you need, you know what I need. It had been good.”

“Did it stop being good?” Kara asked, afraid to hear the answer.

Cat glowered at her. “Don’t be obtuse. Do you know the last time someone opted to sit in the rain on a roof somewhere instead of being in bed with me? And I am aware I haven’t been much better.” She stared out over the city like she was trying to memorize as much as she could before it disappeared. “I assumed I was finally too much to handle on top of everything else and you’d rather be with your soulmate.”

“I didn’t think it was possible for me to have a human soulmate,” Kara said. “That’s why I never did the test.”

“She’s who you’re meant to be with.” Cat smiled sadly.

“I don’t care.”

“You will. When this gets hard.”

“It already is. So what?” She smiled. “You’re not too much to handle.”

A helicopter drifted over their heads and settled on the roof of the hospital. Cat squeezed Kara’s hand. “What do you want to do, Supergirl?” 

“Go home,” Kara said. “Can I take you home?” Cat stared at her, searching long enough that Kara braced herself for a final rejection, but finally Cat cupped her cheek and kissed her gently.

“Only if we take the car. You look like shit and I don’t trust you to fly.”

Kara laughed and the knot that had been twisted up in her chest for so long she’d stopped noticing it wriggled one last time and finally came undone.


End file.
